In beta 2B, you can use essence for the following:

- revive land : 5 points

- create a garden (for an output of 8 food) : 3 points

- summon a familiar: 1 point

- escape deafeat by cheating death: 1 point

Since there are some patches of revitalized lands available on the map, 5 points is really too much since if you are waiting a bit, you can hope to find a spot where to found a city without needing to spend essence. This also means that Pariden isn't an interessant faction to play since they start with a city, which translates into starting with only 10 essence points while factions without city start with 15 essence points and can hope to found a city without spending essence.

In order for the magic path to be interestant without requiring too much research in the civilization tech for having level 5 city in order to use all available buildings in the magic tree, the essence cost for this strategy should be minimal. If not, you won't be able to use high level spells that will requires an important mana cost since currently, max mana = current essence

Having revive land costing 1 point and create garden costing also 1 point should help to make a magic strategy viable. More, farming requires in beta 2A only 2 civvilisation level and isn't an expensive tech to unlock contrary to orchard or apiary. As farm gives in beta 2A 16 food for 4 tiles, you need 6 essence points and 8 tiles to have a similar result. That looks too costly to be really useful.

For a fighting sovereign, HP is really sparse. You can expect to start with 15HP if you put all available points in constitution. Taking the hardy talent allow you to increase your HP of 25%. So if you choose to level constitution from 15 to 16 you will end with 16 + 16*0.25 = 20 HP.

But for a magic oriented sovereign, essence is a key factor as it limits your amount of mana. Having a talent that gives you 5 essence for the same cost than the hardy talent could be very useful.

The last point is that the only current way to increase essence points is through level up. And the current only way to level up is through fighting. So in order to have a usable magic oriented sovereign you end up having a super combatant sovereign. It could be nice if you gain experience through the combats experienced by your summoned units, with bonus if you have used essence to summon them. For example:

• If you fight directly a foe and kill him you gain 10 XP.
• If it a normal unit that fight this battle and kill the foe, you gain nothing (it is the current behavior I think)
• If it is a unit summoned without essence that fight this battle and kill the foe, you gain the 10 XP as if your were participating in this battle
• If it is a familiar  (unit summoned only once with a cost of essence of 1) that is fighting  and kill the foe, you gain 20XP.
• Naturally, if you are participating in this fight with the summoned units, you gain only your regular 10 XP